Hi
I am soon to be collecting my new car but it doesn't have a six disc changer, just the single disc.
I want to upgrade to the 6 disc but the dealership i'm buying the car from said it's around £1500 to add the changer! They said the computer all needs updating and it needs loads of wiring added.
Does anyone know if this is the case? With all the e46's I have owned i've just plugged one in and off it goes!
Just to confirm, the car is a BMW 5 Series 520d SE on an 06 plate.
Thanks,
Adam
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If the 6 disc is in the boot then it will need the appropriate plug on the wiring loom, speaking from my experience with a cheaper car! Perhaps an auto-electrician could help at something a great deal less than the BMW labour rate? Is the car actually new or just new to you? SFAIK most cars have very similar looms, it is just that the things you haven't ordered are't there to be plugged into it, but the conectiont can be found.
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I belive the changer goes into the glove box.
From what the supplying garage said it doesn't sound as if there is any electrical connection available. Although he's a salesman trying to get rid of a car and get his cash as quickly as possible.
I have also noticed that some cars are described as having 'Autochanger preparation'.
I think it might need extra software to get it to be fully compliant with the iDrive console. Although I have no idea, it would make sense to me that BMW would put the wire and software into every car just so they could sell multi-changers to customers??
The car is new to me, it's a 2006 plate.
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I'm afraid the main dealer is almost correct.Fitting an autochanger requires the software on the car to be updated which can take a few hours as all the computer networks on the system are involved.The cd changer is linked via fibre optic cables through the MOST system.(media oriented system transport).A better option and a lot cheaper is to have a Dension gateway installed in conjunction with an I -pod.hth
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Elekie
Thanks for the reply.
What a pain! There is an 'AUX' connection in the car, do you know if that can be used for anything?
Thanks,
Adam
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Hi elekie&a/c doctor
A mate of mine has put my reg number into the BMW system and it says that it has 'CD Preparation' does this mean it still needs all the faffing with the software and fibre optics or is it a 'plug and play' scenario with this 'preparation'?
Thanks!
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Difficult to give an exact answer to this.Once the unit is installed then the "most" network will "look" for a unit that has been fitted.You may get away with just a short upgrade via the fibre optic diagnostic link.(not the 16 pin obd socket)hth
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Thought it was a bit much of a gamble buying a changer and hoping it would plug and play.
I'm looking at the iPod interface now. Dealer wants £570 to supply and fit this! Crazy, the software upgrade takes longer than the hardware installation.
Does anyone know of a cheaper alternative to the dealer upgrading the software or am I forced to have this done by BMW?
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Is the single disc player MP3 compatible? If so you can use a PC to burn up to 10 or so albums on one data CD, better that a changer really, you can keep the original CDs at home.
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Hmm? I'll check that out tonight. Could be a pain having a CD with 100 songs on but worth a look! Thanks for the tip.....
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The software upgrade does not have to be done by a BMW .However you will have to find somebody with Autologic diag kit with the fibre optic diagnostic link cable.This is the only aftermarket kit that I know that will do the job correctly.hth
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cheddars right...try an mp3 player. cost from £50 upwards...
when you burn the disk you can put different artists in seperate folders so its not like you have to fast forward loads of tracks,,,,just find the right folder,
its just like using a pc...in fact when I had one, the panasonic box even said "windows" on it....
once went on a trip from oxford to cornwall with kids in the car, and had recorded kids and grown up music on the same disk,,,just different folders,,,only had to change the disk on the way home!! 7 days later....ha ha..
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cheddars right...try an mp3 player. cost from £50 upwards...>>
It might be zero cost if the std unit is MP3 compatible.
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Hi all
This is a great idea and well worth exploring. However, last night I burned a CD with MP3's, put it in the car and it said it was unable to read the medium.
After scouring the internet there seems to be mixed opinions as to whether this message means it has been able to read it but the cars software needs to be switched on to allow MP3's to play.
Some people are saying that if the data on the disc really was unable to be read it would just be ignored and would stay on the Radio without reporting a message.
I tried various methods of burning the CD, used Nero, Windows XP but still received the same message.
I just asked my dealer if there is a software switch that can be activated to allow them to run and he said "BMW don't approve of using burned CD's as they frequently get jammed"
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The BMW dealer should be able to confirm whether or not the CD player is MP3 compatible.
Looking at the BMW website the spec for a 520d SE says "BMW Business radio with single CD" (it also says "Preparation for six CD changer" ! )
Though for instance for a Z4M it says "BMW Business radio with single CD and MP3 compatibility".
It could be that it is exactly the same unit, the same unit and MP3 is firmware enabled in the Z4M or it could be a different unit entirely.
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None of the dealers know or they say "you must use an iPod to play any music other than original CD's' which I know is rubbish because it talks about compressed Audio (Mp3's) in the cars manual.
The trouble is the manual covers every 5 series in the range so I don't have specific information on my vehicle.
These dealerships are ridiculous, I don't want to spend a fortune on an iPod upgrade if my car is fully capable of running Mp3's with it's current hardware setup.
I just need someone trustworthy to say YES or NO your car definitely can't play Mp3's or YES it can but you need a software upgrade.
Grrrrr!
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Ask on bmwland or similar
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Aside from the question of MP3 compatibility you said:
"around £1500 to add the changer! They said the computer all needs updating and it needs loads of wiring added".
However the spec for the car on the BMW website says "Preparation for six CD changer".
?
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Yes and from the fact it says 'Preparation for 6 disc changer" you would assume that you would go to your friendly local dealer, by a changer, plug it in and away you go right?
Wrong! All the CD prep means is that they have kindly plugged a fibre optic cable into your CD player in the factory. According to the dealer it sill needs a huge software update which takes all day, plus the purchase price of the changer. The £1500 did turn out to be an exaggeration on the part of the supplying dealer, as I said earlier I did think he just wanted his money and to get rid of the car from his forecourt.
I have been quoted £700-800 for the changer job.
With that outlay i'd go for the iPod option, can get 40,000 songs on an iPod which doesn't jump on rough roads.
Although if my radio is capable of playing MP3's i'd rather not outlay anything!
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the other option would be to offer me a stupid amount of money, for my 8 year old volvo....
which is fitted with the standard radio/tape player....
then get a tape adaptor for £1.99 and plug the mp3 player into that.....
paul....
hmmm in a friday mood sorry.....
good luck finding a grown up solution...
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After I decided i'd go for the iPod connection I decided to go for the iPod classic which has the largest capacity available at the moment, 120GB. E-mailed BMW to check it was compatible and they said they'd get back to me - waited a few days and they didn't. Couldn't get any sense from the dealerships so went to the one closest to me at work to see if I could get someone in the parts department to confirm the iPod classic would work. They tapped a few keys on the keyboard, put in my reg number and said yes it would definitely work as it is the latest generation.
So I toddled off home and bought an iPod for £179.99, considering it a piece of equipment for my car.
Booked the car in for the £500 job and yesterday they came and collected it. They had it from 9am.
4pm came and I got a call saying they were having 'technical issues' and couldn't complete the job. They returned the car back to me with a wire in the glove box and an updated iDrive SW Version which seemed to believe I had a multi-changer fitted.
The dealership finally bothered to call me back this morning at 11:10am to organise getting my car back in for them to complete the job, although they have no idea what to do to get my car working with this BMW iPod upgrade. Pretty awful really, they couldn't get it back in until the 10th November, even though it's their fault and incompetence that resulted in it not being finished yesterday.
If all that wasn't enough, BMW then finally responded to my e-mail sent almost 10 days ago and they said "the iPod classic will NOT work with the iPod upgrade, it only works with the previous generation"
So my local dealership not only told me a specific iPod was compatible which it wasn't but they then failed to do a pretty simple task.
So now i've got an iPod which won't work with my car and a half installed iPod interface which BMW do not know how to get working.
Why do I keep buying BMW's?
Edited by Aocal on 30/10/2008 at 18:38
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